It was a couple of days ago that a story broke about Will Smith actually being a Scientologist and Sony Studios trying to kill the story. The good folks over at Defamer broke it, and here’s the short version of what went down:
– MSNBC broke a story that Will Smith was a secret Scientologist.
– Sony Studios (who is releasing Smith’s new film “Hancock“) allegedly flipped out and contacted MSNBC in an attempt to get them to pull or change the story.
– MSNBC refused to pull the story
– Sony released a denial statement from Will Smith about being a Scientologist.
– Smith’s Scientologist friends got upset about the denial
– MSNBC later updated their story to say that Sony never contacted them in an attempt to get them to pull the story.
– Defamer insists their story is accurate and is standing by it.
So is Will Smith a Scientologist? More importantly should it matter? Personally I don’t give two squats what religious philosophy a person holds too weather it’s Scientology, Hinduism, Atheism, Christianity, Islam or what have you. Your personal beliefs are your personal beliefs and as far as I’m concerned you’re free to have them and even express them if you wish no matter if I agree with them or not. When you’re on the screen you’re a different character and all I care about is if you play that character well or not.
However, it is interesting that (at least according to this story) a major studio sees association with Scientology to be a potentially damaging thing. Perhaps they still see a Tom Cruise backlash and don’t want to be associated with it.
It would be hard to blame Sony for thinking this way. After all, Mission Impossible 3 was forecasted to take in about $205-220 million domestically. In the heart of the whole Tom Cruise craziness the film only managed to take $135 million. Cruises next film, “Lion for Lambs” only managed $15 million. So if the Tom Cruise Scientology thing is a part of that rapid decrease in Cruise bankability, you could understand Sony wanting to distance Will Smith from it (at least until after Hancock comes out.
So here are a couple of questions for you guys:
1) If it came out that Will Smith was a Scientologist, WOULD it effect (not SHOULD it effect) your interest or desire in anyway to see his projects?
2) Now, do you think Smith coming out as a Scientologist would effect the desire of OTHER PEOPLE to see his projects?
I’m really curious to hear what you guys think.
